Additional Large Mammalian Fauna from the Namurungule Formation, Samburu Hills, Northern Kenya

Abstract

Some 1150 late Miocene vertebrate fossils were collected by the Japan-Kenya Expedition from the Namurungule Formation in the Samburu Hills, Northern Kenya. The Namurungule mammalian local fauna has simillarities to late Miocene Eurasian faunas from Samos and Pikermi (Greece), Maragheh (Iran), and the Nagri and Dhok Pathan Formations of the Siwalik Hills (India). This similarity indicates mammalian interchanges between Eurasian and Africa during the late Miocene. The svanna fauna of the Namurungule Formation differs completely from the earilier Aka Aiteputh Formation fauna, which indicates a woodland enviroment (Pickford et al. 1984). This great change in the mammalian fauna of the East African late Miocene coincided with the beginning of the opening of the Gregory Rift.